Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you're like me, this will be a major online purchase for you. You probably have also seen that there are precious few reviews on pool heaters. So I will write a little bit lengthier review and figure you will have the patience to read through it. My 20 year old pool heater was dead and the summer was just starting. I got 3 bids from big Southern California pool companies. Each bid was around $2700. I thought I could do better. After a little research, I quickly realized there are only 3-4 major pool heater manufacturers. There were plenty of articles out there to figure out what size I needed and one article said to always get a bigger heater than you need (good advice!). The bids I received from my pool guy and the other companies always broke down to heater around $2200 and installation $500. When I told my pool guy I was going online he asked that after I picked the heater I wanted to give him a chance to beat the price. When I gave him this price including no tax and no delivery fee he could not beat it. Hayward is one of the big 3 with just a couple of models to choose from so it was an easy decision to pick this one. Our pool is a lap pool with only 8000 gallons instead of the more normal 10,000-12,000g(my estimate using calculator on another site) but I chose a slightly bigger capacity. I am glad I did because to heat from 71 degrees to 90 degrees where i like it takes about 6-8 hours. (But Now I need a solar blanket to not lose the heat at night. Anyway, there are cheaper pricings on this model at other sites but I knew Amazon would stick behind his if i had problems so I paid about $100 more but using Amazon Prime, I paid no shipping saving over $150 in shipping. It took about 8 days to arrive. It was delivered to my garagre. Beautifully and securely packed. I was able to unpack it myself with a box cutter and a screw driver. My pool guy was able to install it in 2 hours including the grounding and a new pipe fitting at the gas valve. He charged me $350. I was able to track the heater delivery online. I was able to pay by credit card which I could not do if a pool company bought it for me. It works easily, amazingly simply, and total cost was $1870 so I saved almost $900 and got a bigger heater than the pool guys would have given me. It is sensitive so one time after a week it shut off with a code for insufficient water supply (keep the manual to read the error codes in the digital window)but a simple backwashing and the flow picked right up and it went on again. I definitely recommend getting this online. You will save a lot and this model is very handsome, sleek, low profile and easy to operate.